Hello everyone
Richard Ridge wrote:
Dan:
> > Researchers have observed what they term a "compelling" change in whale
> > songs and often times we can see more clearly in other species our own
> > cognition traits which have been covered over in complexity. Is a whale
> > song to be considered a meme?
> Richard Ridge:
> I rather think that depends upon what you define a meme to be, as the term
> seems to me to possess a somewhat diffuse disposition.
Hi Richard
Thank you for your reply and welcome to the discussion group. The MOQ
states: A does not cause B, B values preconditions of A. In even
attempting to formulate a definition based on dependence, are we not
falling back into a context of causality here? Taking this into
consideration would seem to involve changing your statement to something
like "a meme values being defined" rather than what we define the meme
to be.
> I often hear the term
> used to refer to any number of concepts. In 'The Selfish Gene' defines a
> meme as follows: " a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.
> . . . . Examples of memes are tunes." In response to this Daniel Dennett in
> 'Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination' also acknowledges that music
> capable of replicating itself can be categorised as memetic.
Unless I am mistaken I believe Dennett states it is the meme hosts (in
the case of the whale song, the whales) who replicate the meme and not
the memes themselves that replicate. I have never read this essay,
however, and am going by what he says in his book "Darwin's Dangerous
Idea". I ran a quick search to see if I could find the essay online but
only found dead links. Do you have a working url?
> For me, it is
> important to note that Dennett sees memetics as intrinsic to the evolution
> of ideas ' A scholar is just a library's way of making another library,' and
> sees memetics as a more rigorous mechanism to understand that. With these
> definitions, memetics would be wholly applicable to the context you have
> identified.
Do you really think so? From what I've read, Dennett fails to bring
morality to the forefront and follows the (pretty much) established
scientific doctrine that our "stone age" ancestors were idiots living
little better than animals. Dennett begins his story of the birth of
memes thusly: "Once upon a time...there was no morality at all." If this
is the context towards which memes are applicable, then I really see no
way of reconciling them with the Metaphysics of Quality.
> However, in Dawkin's essay 'Viruses of the Mind' Dawkins goes
> much further to note two characteristics of the viral dissemination of
> memetic units:
>
> "1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner
> conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that
> doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless,
> he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a
> belief as ``faith.''
>
> 2. Patients typically make a positive virtue of faith's being strong and
> unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may fell
> that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief."
>
> In this sense, the song would perhaps only qualify as a 'weak' meme. Where
> Dennett appears to propose no exemptions from memetic evolution, Dawkins
> suggests that memetics has special relevance to the propagation of ideas
> that are without rational foundation 'behavior that owes more to
> epidemiology than to rational choice.' By contrast, I think I would argeu
> that a rational meme could be propagated in the same manner as an irrational
> meme, although the means of transmission would have little to do with
> rationality. The following quote from Dennett does much to clarify the
> divergence of viewpoint here:
>
> " Dawkins ends The Selfish Gene with a passage that many of his critics must
> not have read:
>
> We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary,
> the selfish memes of our indoctrination. . . . We are built as gene machines
> and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our
> creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish
> replicators. (p.215.)
>
> In distancing himself thus forcefully from the oversimplifications of pop
> sociobiology, he somewhat overstates his case. This "we" that transcends not
> only its genetic creators but also its memetic creators is, I have just
> claimed, a myth. Dawkins himself seems to acknowledge this in his later
> work. In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins argues for the biological
> perspective that recognizes the beaver's dam, the spider's web, the bird's
> nest as not merely products of the phenotype--the individual organism
> considered as a functional whole--but parts of the phenotype, on a par with
> the beaver's teeth, the spider's legs, the bird's wing."
>
> To my mind, this is where memetics has considerable difficulty - becoming a
> victim of CP Snow's two cultures. It is an interesting perspective on the
> evolution of ideas (as Dennett notes) and on certain sociological mechanisms
> (for example, in the same way that many sociologists see gossip as an
> important element in social interaction, and where in modern more
> inidividualistic societies this need is fulfilled by the soap opera,
> memetics is a useful way to note how communication may take place in
> differing environments*) but perhaps can also be used as a way to denigrate
> popular culture (and indeed, culture in general).
>
> *with obvious relevance to the whales, to return to the original point.
I fear my reading on the subject of memes does not rival your own but
you seem to make many good points here...
>
> > Still, in no way should patterns of value be looked at as merely an
> illusion either.
> > Reality is composed of patterns of values, and that's all there is,
> > except for undefined Dynamic Quality.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly.
>
> > I still sense discordance between the MOQ and memetic theory in general
> > and welcome any comments anyone might have.
>
> I think I would argue that the discordance lies in the dichotomy between
> reason and 'un-reason' that appears to have infected memetics.
Let's examine the term "infected" more closely and see where it leads,
for I sense that term itself may be symptomatic of a deeper discordance
which Phaedrus calls subject/object metaphysics. To become biologically
infected is to presuppose foreign objects (be they bacteria, virus,
prion) which are floating around "out there" just waiting to infiltrate
into the body whenever the opportunity arises. For the most part it
seems memes are viewed as a sociological counterpart to so called
infectious biological agents.
The MOQ begins not with subjects and objects, but with value. Bacteria
do not infect the patient (cause sickness); bacteria value the
preconditions that allow them to thrive. Bacteria are all part of this
construct of us. The doctor prefers the patient over the germ, however.
This preference is all part of the valuing process; an evolutionary set
of ratchet leaps that allow us to build a system based on morality.
Susan Blackmore writes: "...if Dawkins is right and memes are
replicators, then memes serve their own selfish ends, replicating
whenever they can. They sculpt our
minds and cultures as they go—whatever their effect on the genes." (The
Power of Memes, http://www.uwe.ac.uk/fas/staff/sb/SciAm00.html)
In one sense the MOQ would seem to agree with Blackmore... social
patterns of value have taken off in opposing directions from the
biological patterns of value they evolved from. Driven by Dynamic forces
of value, ratchet leaps are made which sometimes result in a firm
foothold (the whale song). Once a firm foothold is established only
another Dynamic force can come along and dislodge it. Blackmore again:
"Memes are not magical
entities or free-floating Platonic ideals but information lodged in
specific human memories, actions
and artifacts."
Memes are not "out there" floating around, just waiting to infect a host
in a selfish manner. If memes are to be taken as "information" then
there is nothing at all that can be said of a meme before we become
aware of it (infected with value) by making a ratchet leap. And this is
where the memeticists seem to fall flat on their faces. On the other
hand, if Dennett had began his story of the birth of memes with "once
upon a time there was only morality" then memes might be seen as what
the MOQ states they are: value. If this is what you mean by "the
dichotomy between
reason and 'un-reason' that appears to have infected memetics" then I
believe we are basically on the same page.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Dan
> Sorry, I should have explained that I have only just subscribed to this list
> and have therefore not seen these previous discussions. I do hope I haven't
> opened up any old wounds!
Don't know of any... I hope not too! Welcome once again to the
discussion.
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